Cigars or cigarillos are frequently sold attached to a plastic or ‘wood’ tip and numerous cigar brands of this type of construction are known. Such tips normally comprise a circular tubular section at one end (into which the end of the cigar is inserted) and a tapered, or fluted, section at the other end that the smoker places between their lips. These tips are normally hollow and do not exert any filtering effect on the smoke, although variants in which a filtering medium can be included within the tip are known. The purpose of the tip is to enable the smoker to smoke the product along most of its length (e.g. which he would be unable to do with a simple unfiltered cigar) and to provide a cooling sensation to the smoke. Disadvantages with these plastic or ‘wood’ tips are that they are relatively costly to manufacture (normally by an injection moulding process), they are difficult to connect to the cigar column using high speed machinery (e.g. as they all need to be orientated in the same direction due to their non-symmetrical nature) and they give a cold and unyielding ‘mouthfeel’ when placed between the smokers lips.
Filtered cigars are also commercially available and these are analogous to filtered cigarettes in that a plug (normally of cellulose acetate) is connected to the wrapped cigar column, typically by use of a tipping overwrap. However, these tend not to be popular with cigar smokers as the filter affects the sensory characteristics of the smoke and cigar smokers generally prefer the taste associated with unfiltered smoke. In addition, it is possible that plasticizers applied to the filter material (e.g. glycerol triacetate in the case of cellulose acetate) may be transferred to the smoke, further influencing the sensory properties. In addition, the appearance of the filtered cigar or cigarillo can be unappealing to some smokers as there can be a marked contrast between the brown cigar wrapper and the white filter material occupying the entire cross-section of the mouth end.
The technology to make shaped and tapered filters using modified cigarette filter making machinery is also known (e.g. see U.S. Pat. No. 4,423,744). Whilst these can be produced at high speed as a continuous rod and could potentially be used to provide tips for narrower diameter cigars or cigarillos, the section where the continuous rod is cut into finite lengths can have sharper edges that are undesirable to the smoker.
It is desirable to provide a tip (e.g. mouthpiece) which overcomes these advantages.